Grit Lab Report

Hi Amina,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were self-direction, achievement, and benevolence.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was openness.

You said your top three talents were social, verbal, and analytic.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a general intuition (but nothing specific yet) about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to finding a therapist i like .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said wake up got my workout tomorrow .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said i’ll feel good about my health .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said I’m the problem .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I sleep at 11:30, then I can wake up at 8 for my workout .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in music .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt chill when receiving critical feedback, and chill when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling an extreme amount of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being humanity is failing .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as Health .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to Parent .

In one word, you said it made you feel grateful .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

Zeal and grit is what separates peoples ability to be successful. It's important to spend time thinking about what is the grit goal of your life.
Openness to experience is how people can be confused and interested at the same time
effort is more valuable than talent
Having an overarching, superordinate goal and harmony with your goals makes achieving them easier.
Break big things up into smaller things; make them specific and frame them in an if-when statement
Deliberate practice is needed to be an expert! You don't really see the practice that experts engage in and we just assume they are talented.
get advice!
Your brain is a muscle, you can grow and change it!
CUES CHANGE LIVES
Always have a model for something!
don't burn out!

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Sophia Feldman
I really appreciate Amina's positive and sweet nature, which consistently enhances our team dynamics. A notable instance of her thoughtfulness occurred when I expressed an interest in psychology and she immediately offered to connect me with her friend in the field. This genuine gesture reflects her considerate approach to interpersonal relationships. In a team discussion about the best advice we've received, Amina shared the importance of kindness. Amina not only shared insightful perspectives but authentically embodies this value in her daily interactions, contributing to a supportive team environment. Turning to Amina's Discovery project presentation, I found it very engaging. Her exploration of luxury fashion in the Middle East seamlessly integrated with her background from Egypt, offering a culturally enriched perspective. I appreciate how she connected her experiences to the broader context of her project, creating a narrative that resonated on both a personal and professional level. Amina's dedication to thorough research, evident in her curiosity conversation, and finding a directly related course, reflects on her commitment to excellence. Overall, her presentation was not only educational but also reflected her passion, leaving a lasting positive impression on the entire team.
Jacob Scott
Amina was wonderful to have in our group. I looked forward to our conversations every week in our weekly debrief, because she always brought a cool perspective to our group. She always brought a positive demeanor to our group, and seemed eager to learn in class. I thought it was interesting to hear her journey doing marketing both within and outside of the classroom, as well as her ideas on the fashion industry in the MENA region, which her project focused on. I really took an interest to Amina's project. I think the fashion industry is fascinating, and without the time to do the research myself it was great to learn from Amina as she did the LVMH industry course. I thought her presentation was excellent blending her interests in the MENA region with the fashion industry. Overall, I'm super excited to see where she goes with her project!
Shi Ng
Hey Amina, It's been great being on your team throughout the semester. Love catching up every week, and I really like how you always seem to be doing something fun over the weekends. I also like how chill you are, you would fit right in if you ever came to Australia! Also do let me know if you're ever in Aus! Would love to show you around. Honestly I really enjoyed your presentation since I've been reading up on luxury brands too. Never knew Middle East was the fastest growing sector. Good job on doing the LVMH course, sounds pretty interesting, hopefully you make it till the end! Also loved your slides, I like how you made it look luxurious which fit the topic you were talking about. Cheers, Shi Ren

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.